AT&T hit with antitrust lawsuit over Time Warner deal

A report from Bloomberg today shared that AT&T may face an antitrust suit from the U.S. Justice Department over its merger plan with Time Warner. Now, CNBC has reported that the DOJ has issued the suit today.

Citing an unnamed source close to the matter, Bloomberg reported that the Justice Department had said it would make an antitrust announcement this afternoon, but didn’t give any more details. Bloomberg’s source said that the announcement would be about the Justice Department working to block the AT&T/Time Warner deal.

Negotiations for the current deal that has AT&T valuing Time Warner at $85.4 billion originally began this past summer. More recently, deal progress was delayed as the DOJ antitrust head, Makan Delrahim worked with AT&T on competitive remedies.

Now that the lawsuit has been officially filed, AT&T still remains optimistic that the deal will still go through. See AT&T’s full response to the suit below.

Full AT&T statement: pic.twitter.com/DEBYoUqYgs

— Peter Kafka (@pkafka) November 20, 2017

AT&T’s mention of vertical mergers like the one it is pursuing with Time Warner is referencing deals like Comcast/NBCUniversal which approved with regulators approved with conditions back in 2011.

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